unrequitedness

i.

It was the chinito boy on the altar

I was praying for when I was 12.

God answered that prayer after five years.

During a drunk night.

My first love left me with a mark—

His soft lips passionately carressing mine,

erasing my cheap liptint stains.

His hot breath was keeping me warm

during that rainy April day.

His heartbeat, drying my tears

on his navy blue shirt.

And that one forehead kiss

I thought would last like the years

I spent waiting for him.

God let me experience

the love I used to include in prayers

in just one drunk night.

ii.

It was another boy on the altar

I prayed for when I was 16.

He made me believe through

his innocent eyes

and piano serenades

I thought was too kind for me.

For him, I disobeyed my mother

just to hold his watery hands

inside a theater during a rainy night.

I was blind as the dark room,

filling the spaces between his fingers

left unoccupied for a moment

by his unresponsive girlfriend

and my uncertain bestfriend.

For the second time, my heart was gripped

by sweaty palms and beads of crucifix.

Maybe his hands were too slippery to handle three.

iii.

We were natives of our own language.

We were living in the same context.

I understood your deepest secrets,

words born without translations,

even if our souls barely touched—

just seconds in that one night.

But languages, the ever dynamic,

that no matter how comfortable it is,

the whole system tattoed in your tongue,

will change and change.

And despite all the languages

we’ve tried to learn,

ours is the mother tongue,

the one you’ve neglected,

but never forgotten,

closeted voices screaming inside.

I hope my arms around you

will linger forever,

hearing the echoes of our souls.

iv.

For the first time,

my bonnibel,

my princess with curly hair,

it was with you I felt the bravest.

How I wish to stare for long

at your striking eyes

without the need to hide.

How I wish I have accepted that shirt

you offered: black like marceline’s.

Now I cling to the embrace of

your denim jacket I handpainted

with your favorite flowers

except Rose.

It gives me your warmth

I have never experienced.

v.

Love took the form of a name

during my 2nd year in college.

His tan skin and owl eyes,

and the true words,

coming from the gap between his teeth,

made my mornings as good

as my early childhood breakfast,

and evenings as sound

as cold summer nights of the past.

Just when I stopped praying,

I was in someone else’s prayers.

The uttered words of yesterday

were finally heard today.

But to be loved first is not my game.

I took to long to say those words,

he took too fast to heal from those.

And even if I don’t pray anymore,

God knew how much I wanted to...

just to have him

again.

This is not a series of unrequited love.

These are not “love”—

This is a series of unrequitedness,

Of countless attempts,

Of hopelessness,

Of jumping off the cliff that never expects my landfall.

So to the next, and I hope the last,

Look at all the love I have saved for you.

-Jewel Liaison